Newton native's directing career takes wing

Wednesday

Apr 23, 2014 at 4:34 PMApr 28, 2014 at 7:52 AM

By Bob TremblayDaily News staff

Not every director gets to make his debut feature film with an Academy Award-winning actor. But that's just what Rob Meyer did with "A Birder's Guide to Everything," as the former Newton resident had Sir Ben Kingsley as a member of his cast.Meyer admits he was nervous at the prospects of directing an actor whose distinguished resume includes "Gandhi" and "Schindler's List." "But on his first day on set, he very quickly put me at ease," says Meyer during a phone call from New York where he now resides. "I had met him a couple of times before. Even before the film got greenlit, he looked me in the eye and said, ‘Don’t worry, Rob, we’re going to make thing this together.’ He’s very serious and passionate about his work. He had an intensity and a professionalism and a care for the craft of filmmaking and acting. Everyone on set from the moment he arrived took it up a notch, and once he saw we cared as much and he saw the work we were doing, he appreciated we were making a film he would be proud of."That appreciation showed on camera and off. "One afternoon, we were losing light, so me, Kodi (Smit-McPhee, who plays David Portnoy) and Sir Ben - we called him Sir Ben on the set - are sprinting to find a spot in the forest with the most light to get one more shot off," recalls the 37-year-old director. "It shows how enthusiastic and almost kid-like he was in many ways, in addition to being a consummate professional."Meyer credits producers Dan Lindau and R. Paul Miller and casting director Avy Kaufman, whose credits include "The Sixth Sense," "Lincoln" and "Life of Pi," with bringing Kingsley aboard to play David's mentor, ornithologist Lawrence Konrad."That's really what got the film made, having an actor of that caliber," says Meyer. "He just read the script and loved it and connected to it, which is what actors always say, but he really meant it. When I met him on set, he kept saying that and it was very humbling, Having him on board made it a lot easier to get great actors like James Le Gros, who plays David's father. And all the kids in the film are in-demand young actors. Everyone wants to work with Kingsley. It’s like a life dream for a lot of actors.""A Birder's Guide to Everything" is a reworking of Meyer's 2007 short film, "Aquarium," which he made as his thesis at New York University's graduate film school. That film focused on a teenage boy going through a tough period in his life who finds adventure as an aquarium fish enthusiast. The feature film switches the boy's enthusiasm to birds. Both films mix adventure with the more serious subject of coping with loss. "People make short films in part because it’s an interesting format and art form, but really most people make a short film in hopes that it gets them enough attention to start writing or directing features," says Meyer. "The short did way more than I ever expected it to. It got into Sundance, which was mind-blowing to me. It won an award at Sundance, and that set off a lot of other good things happening for it, more festivals, more awards. The response from audience members and people in the industry was overwhelmingly positive. I wasn’t intending on making a feature when I made the short. I needed all the encouragement I could get to believe in myself to go for it and make a feature."To help him in this endeavor, Meyer turned to fellow filmmaker Luke Matheny and the two co-wrote "Birder's." "I didn’t know him that well, but he was one of the only other film students at NYU interested in doing heart-felt comedy so we gravitated toward each other and became good friends," says Meyer. "During the process - it took five years from the time we started writing ('Birder's') to when it was actually shot - Luke made his own short for his graduate thesis ('God of Love') and it won the Oscar for best short. That helped with the momentum for our project."Meyer began making movies as a child. With his father's video camera, he and his friends would star in films and edit them. "They usually involved lots of blood, explosions and cars burning," says Meyer, whose parents John and Stephi still reside in Newton. "In college (at Yale), I got a little more interested in film. I started taking some film studies classes and a couple film production classes, but I really caught the bug making fundraising videos for the college orchestra I was in - I play the violin." The videos became more and more elaborate and more and more popular."Getting laughs and applause definitely got me hooked," says Meyer. "I discovered this is something I really enjoy doing. How rewarding is it to share a story with an audience and feel like it’s connecting with people?""A Birder's Guide to Everything" opened in Boston on April 11 and was shown at the Coolidge Corner in Brookline last week. It has already been shown in other U.S. cities as part of a 25-city release schedule. "Considering how small the movie is, we're thrilled," says Meyer. "A lot of movies don’t get a theatrical run anymore. They go straight to DVD or video on demand." The film can also be seen on demand.Filmed in Westchester, N.Y., on a low budget - how low would not be revealed - "A Birder's Guide to Everything" was shot in 20 days in the summer of 2012 and premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2013.For his next film, Meyer has optioned the book "The Anglophiles," which he intends to turn into a romantic comedy.Just don't expect him to cast any ducks as they provided a source of directorial frustration in the filming of "A Birder's Guide." "Ducks are not the most intelligent birds," says Meyer, who became a birder while making the film. "I just watched a NOVA show about how intelligent birds can be. These were not those kind of birds. If you gave them a puzzle, they would never figure it out."